MATLAB Object-Oriented Programming

Objects In Conditional Statements

In this section...

“Enable Use of Objects In Conditional Statements” on page 5-37

“How MATLAB Evaluates Switch Statements” on page 5-37

“How to Define the eq Method” on page 5-39

“Enumerations in Switch Statements” on page 5-41

Enable Use of Objects In Conditional Statements

Enable the use of objects in conditional statements by defining relational operators for

the class of the object. Classes that derive from the handle class inherit relational

operators. Value classes can implement operators to support the use of conditional

statements involving objects. For information on defining operators for your class, see

“Operator Overloading” on page 17-47.

How MATLAB Evaluates Switch Statements

MATLAB enables you to use objects in switch statements when the object’s class defines

an eq method. The eq method implements the == operation on objects of that class.

For objects, switch_expression == case_expression defines how MATLAB

evaluates switch and cases statements.

NoteYou do not need to define eq methods for enumeration classes. See “Enumerations

in Switch Statements” on page 5-41.

Handle Objects in Switch Statements

All classes derived from the handle class inherit an eq method. The expression,

h1 == h2

is true if h1 and h2 are handles for the same object.

For example, the BasicHandle class derives from handle:

Objects In Conditional Statements..................... 5-